Second life for a '72 Overlander

[digidad]

Ah, the photos.

[dbj216]

Wow, there sits a new Overlander frame in all it's glory. I'll just bet it is better than the one Airstream made for this trailer. Better steel, and certainly better rust protection. This new frame adds significant value to your 72 Overlander.

I wonder of just good old fashioned automotive enamel would be a good paint choice, even in lime green! It is durable stuff. I don't think you would need fancy powder coats, two part epoxies, or POR 15, or other expensive paints. And you certainly aren't needed high gloss or mirror finish.

So get better at updates! We enjoy watching others solve problems and put these old trailers back together.

David

[digidad]

This past weekend, we wire-brushed all the surface dew-rust, put on two coats of SEM self-etching primer, and the first coat of the enamel paint. Making slow but steady progress.

Note to self: don't wear sandals when spray painting.

[digidad]

(In case anyone else can learn from the picts, here's some of what I missed posting.)

11/6/14: I built the gantries from the PDF plans that are cycling through the forum. I used pressure treated lumber as I won't have any place to store them inside, and wanted them to last.

Went and drilled out all of the rivets. I'm sure it was all. Didn't miss a single one.

Had some friends over, and put the gantries in place. The chains went through the vents, and then around 4x4's. Lifted.

Hard to believe, but I missed a couple of rivets. No, no, I kid you not. Took a chistle, and popped them off. Still wouldn't come free. Found that the front corner of the shell had bent under the floor. straightened it a little, and "POP," the shell went up and the floor went down.

Lifted enough to clear the wheelwells, and pulled out the trailer frame.

Had a beer.
Or two.

[digidad]

11/11/14: Although I had made templates for all of the floor sections, I was still hoping to keep the existing floor pieces as a secondary template.

Marked them, drilled out the elevator bolts, and up they came. To get the bolts, I took a hole saw, removed the center tap bit, and cut around the bolts. That let me lift the panels easily.

Found a third dead rodent. Yum...

[digidad]

11/12/14: Took a ton of measurements, everything I could think of. (If anyone wants the complete set of pictures, let me know, I'll find a way to get you all 30 of them.)

Took the sawz-all, and cut off all the elevator bolt, and cleaned off as much of the residual pink as I could.

She's ready to head to the Welder's, for use as a template.

Note the rusted-through section of the frame. No wonder they all told us it couldn't be repaired... In fact, Mike had to weld on bracing just to make it towable.

It left our house on-or-about the 20th. We ordered new axles on Dec 12th.

And then we waited.

and waited...

and waited...

[digidad]

While we waited for the new frame and the new axles, my aluminum-loving wife found an Aristocrat Lo-liner. We started refurbing her.

Wood is much easier than aluminum...

[digidad]

1/30/15: The front edges of the skins had been badly mangled, and curled under the floor. Took a hammer and dolly and straightened them as much as I could, to make the re-assembly easier.

[digidad]

2/6/15: Mike invited us up to the shop to see the progress. He's doing an amazing job! Popped outside to take a couple of measurements off the old frame, and it looks really sad now that I've seen a new one...

After two months on hold, it's a great shot in the arm to see real progress.

[digidad]

2/23/15: We enjoy riding bikes, and so worked with Mike to design a hitch receiver for the back of the trailer. We have a Yakima bike rack that fits into the receiver on the minivan (aka "The Mothership"), and wanted to reuse it.

Lot of measurements, and some seat of the pants engineering - we had to figure out far the curve of the hitch actually went into the receiver, and how much clearance.

[digidad]

2/24/15: Disaster. We finally got the axles, and... They don't fit.

Seriously?
Seriously.

Off by 7".

Took about a week, but we finally tracked down our axles. They had been sent to Florida, to a customer with a widebody trailer. Shipping labels were swapped at the factory.

Many an unfortunate bit of blue language flew in our household.

Depression sets in.

[digidad]

Mid-March: With the correct axles collected from Florida, and shipped to Mike, he was finally able to cut the mounting flanges, and finish up the job. Thank goodness he has patience, and a good sense of humor - he didn't bargain for this when he signed up...

4/4/15: Mike brings the trailer back to us.

Life is good.
The next phase begins.

[J. Morgan]

If it were mine I would use Industrial Imron.

It is about $130 a gallon with activator...

A gallon will paint that frame...


http://s245.photobucket.com/user/JMD...hop/Imron%2035



1/2 Ton 4WD Truck, 72 Sovereign Hensley Arrow

[RM66caravel]

So green feet huh! Bet the baby wants hers green too! Looks awesome and I only hope that you get more pleasure out of it than the work you have put into it! You deserve it you have done an awesome job! Keep it going!
Cliff

[dbj216]

DuPont (IIRC) Imron is tough paint. It is impervious to many chemicals like jet fuel, brake fluid, antifreeze, and the stuff that will mar standard automotive paints. And they make it in shades of green.

POR 15 is good too at about $150 a gallon, but alas, no green. And I don't think it likes new metal. It likes rusty old stuff.

Here's what Airstream used on my 86 Limited. Not too bad for 25 years old in a wet environment. I'll bet Airstream went with a pretty cheap paint.

David

[digidad]

Last week was a big supply week. Laurel took a quick two-day trip to LA to pick up both straight and curved "C" channel from inland RV, and wheel wells from someone else. I ordered and received eight sheets of 5052 for the belly pan.

[digidad]

Got the floor attached on Friday. Turned out to be harder than I expected (as every single step has been...), not the least because one of the stringers was off by 1/2". That combined with the huge headache of getting the C channel to fit...

The boards are 4'x8' 21/32 cabinet plywood from HomeDepot. They weight a ton, but there are no voids at all. I sealed the edges and end-grains with Smith's penetrating epoxy from VTS, and then used Thompson's water seal for the center of the panels. Both sides. Hopefully that'll keep the rot off them for a few decades.

The middle four panels were cut using the old floor boards as patterns. The front and back were cut using the luan-patterns that I made, since I had to allow for the C channel on the front, and there wasn't any wood left in the back.

The boards are down with 3/8" x 2" elevator bolts. They have a square shoulder that's supposed to keep them from spinning, once set in the wood, but that doesn't always work. I'm using a flared nyla-nut, and washers, and it seems to be working OK. Looks like I will have to countersink the bolts, which I wasn't expecting. Once I saw that, I put in just enough bolts to hold down the panels to the frame, and to compress the sisters while the glue dried. I'll finish next weekend.

(It's nice to see the new frame & floor next to the old one. What a difference!)

[digidad]

Mike (our welder) came up with a set of attachments to ease flipping the frame. I took two 3-ton lifting straps from HF, and connected them to the gantry hoists. Once I had it off the ground it rotated with ease!

Thanks Mike!!!

Here are some pictures of the rig.

I put some 4x4's on the ground before I flipped it, to keep the wheels and the C-channel from grinding. Have to step carefully, since not all the elevator bolts are in yet. Ground off the residual rust (from where we missed priming two weeks ago) and sprayed.

Then lifted it up, flipped it onto its side, and lowered it onto the 4x4's again. Just enough weight on the 4x4 to keep it from swaying/rotating. Put another 4x against the frame for safety, in case something broke. (That much steel in the air is disconcerting.)

Got about half of the bolts countersunk. After drilling, I dowsed the holes with Thompsons, again. Also made a cross across the hole with a chistle, to help the square shoulder bit into the wood. Works pretty well. Once to twice I had to apply a little leverage with a catspaw against the washer to keep the bolt from popping back out while I tightened it, but I'm getting pretty good at it.

[dbj216]

Your Overlander is certainly getting a super makeover. New frame, new subfloor, and new c-channels. Those dog gone elevator bolts are difficult to install and keep from popping up and rotating, especially working alone.

Your rotating jig looks great. I like the idea of using web sling to support the frame in your gantries. It is a lot of steel in the air for sure.

Yes, every aspect of the project from now on will take longer and cost more than you anticipated. It did for me and my project was less than half of yours.

Keep us posted. This is an interesting renovation.

David

[digidad]

I took a couple of extra days off for the long weekend, since we're way behind schedule to make our first rally next month.

It started off with countersinking the rest of the already drilled elevator bolts, drilling and sinking the rest of the bolts, and tightening. Took about an hour.

Yeah, right.

The first problem was the adhesive I had used on the sister boards. What we got was not what we asked for, and while it was still LocTite brand, it was subfloor adhesive, not construction adhesive. I should have known better, but I used it for the first two sisters. I had a bad feeling about the way it was spreading, so I switched back to Titebond II wood glue for the last three. It was a good move. When I went to check the bolts, the second sister looked like it had separated. I removed all the bolts, and with just a tap of the hammer, it popped out. You can see from the pictures that a) it never really adheared, and b) I don't look good in protective gear. (I'm using a Uvex face shield, as I managed to lose my prescription safety glasses.)

The good part of it not sticking to the wood was that it didn't stick to the wood. A sharp paint scraper and a lot of patience, and I was able to remove the crud from the sister and the floor panels. Applied a more than liberal amount of titebond, and re-attached. Although the first sister hadn't separated, I was still suspicious. Again, I removed the bolts. One good pry with the cats-paw, and it popped as well. Same drill - clean, glue, re-bolt.

I did learn a couple of tricks for getting the nyla-nuts to work with the square-shouldered elevator bolts.

1) take a chisle, and cut a shallow + into the wood. Align the square's corners with the cuts.
2) take a small pry-bar or cats-paw, an apply just a little pressure to the underside of the washer to keep the bolt from popping back up.
3) take a 5/8th outer tooth lock washer and tap it ungently with a hammer to bend it into an oval. The teeth will grip the wood, and the oval (properly persuaded) will just fit over the square shoulder and keep the bolt from spinning.

It took pretty much all of the day, but I got all the bolts in and tightened down.